© Nick MoirKindergarten students enjoying a laugh. A child disinclined to join in could have signs of psychopathic traits.
When exposed to laughter, the boys at risk of developing psychopathy reported less interest in joining in and showed less activity in the emotional centre of the brain.
The study's lead researcher Essi Viding said such children did not experience the world in the same way as other children.
"That does not mean that these children are destined to become antisocial or dangerous," she said. "Rather, these findings shed light on why they often make different choices from their peers."
The study, carried at University College London, measured the brain activity of 62 disruptive boys and 30 normally-behaved boys.
A child was flagged as having traits associated with psychopathy if they were disruptive (aggressive and difficult to control) and "callous-unemotional" (lacking empathy and emotion).
It should be noted the researchers were not saying some of the children involved in the study were psychopaths, only that they displayed traits that could influence a diagnosis in adulthood.
"It is not appropriate to label children psychopaths," Professor Viding said. "Psychopathy is an adult personality disorder."
Well that's total Bullshit.
My mom was Hannibal Lechter & the little girl from The Bad Seed as a kid according to her siblings & parents and she only got worse with age. I also knew a kid from "the neighborhood" who @ 8 killed any cat or other small animal he could get his hands on while exhibiting behavior which adults said was a reaction to his "just being so smart that he's frustrated" (loved watching him have violent temper tantrums which required 3 grown adults to subdue him, while if you watched him when he'd stop his tirades, he'd turn, look you in the eye, and give you that same smile as the kid from the original Omen movie). By 13, this kid was the local purveyor of "snuff films" (this was back before VHS even), then he went on to work for the military industrial complex & is now in 'The Valley' working with companies who peddle tech which exists for no other reasons than "surveillance" and "control" (& need I mention wh/ small country has a $ connection to the companies he "works for".... and it's not the US or UK).
Psychopaths are wired from birth to be psychopaths. Non-psychopaths might learn psychopathic behavior (look at what's viewed as normal these days in any Western culture & that's obvious), but unlike the psychopath, their overall patterns of thought and behavior will tend back to "normal".